


You can hear me singing, but my mouth isn't open

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester deals with a monster, and this time, he can't fight it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You can hear me singing, but my mouth isn't open

_Entry #1- December 23_

_Sammy, this is stupid. Of all the dumb ideas you’ve ever had, this is one of the dumbest._

Dean shut the journal with a weary sigh. He knew his brother was just trying to be helpful, but all the damn book did is remind him why he was writing in it.

Swallowing down a torrent of emotions, he checked his watch for about the four billionth time that day.

_Entry #2- January 2_

_Six months, my ass. We can get through this._

Dean had hated waiting rooms from the very start. From that day in 1983 when Sam had to get treatment for smoke inhalation, to every day afterward. Whenever he found himself in one, it meant someone he loved was either dead or near to it. How peachy.

But now, he was used to them. He saw these stained white walls more than the stained yellow ones back at the motel. His spine seemed to shift  and settle until it melded with the plastic hospital chair. The dull beeps of monitors and click of footsteps on antiseptic-soaked linoleum became ingrained into his subconscious. He had spent so much time here, so much time feeling Sam’s tears warm his shoulder as he hugged him, that he could probably walk these halls blindfolded.

Sam had always been the one to hope, to believe, but now Dean was playing that part for both of them. And boy, was it hard. Keeping up a game face was one thing, but smiling, joking, even when a clump of Sam’s hair fell out when he ran his fingers through it, that was hard.

 

_Entry #3- March 19_

_I got you a house, Sammy. We can do this. We can play family. I still don’t understand why the chemo therapy didn’t work, but you’re not dying. Not on my watch. At least not without a smile on your pansy-ass little face._

Out in the woods, next to a serene lake, this safehouse of Bobby’s seemed ideal for Sam. Dean spent about a week cleaning it up, painting it, hiding all the guns. For more reasons than one, but he didn’t feel like going into that. It had to look as purely… domestic, as possible, which was a little difficult with all the medical equipment he had to bring, but he could manage it. Sam wanted a normal life? Well, if this wasn’t the normal-est looking house in the entire goddamn continental United States, Dean would be damned. Again.

Watching Sam’s glowing face and goofy smile for the first time in months was the only payment he needed for his troubles.

Once Sam had gone to bed, Dean begun his research.

_Entry #4- April 15_

_You’re getting better, right? You gotta be. Sick brothers don’t act like you do. Maybe it’s a show. Just for me, right? You want me to think you’re okay. I’m going to make you okay. I promise._

April was unusually warm this year. Bobby’s house- er,  _their_  house, was cramped and had no cable, so they spent entire days outside. Sam had shown to be the type to go on long walks, and Dean didn’t mind coming along. It meant Sammy was feeling alright. Teaching Sam how to fish had been a pain, and Sam still sucked ass, but his baby brother’s laughter still echoed in his ears. That was a good sign.

_Entry #5- April 30_

_Garth has no ideas._

It was almost as if Sam had a sixth sense, knew Dean was digging dirt up on cures. He was around Dean twenty-four seven, like a second shadow. He danced around Dean, flames on a candle wick, made Dean chase him outside, and in a fight Dean let himself be tackled and pinned down. They tossed around a football, which Sam dropped a couple too many times, but that was okay. They watched old horror movies, quoting classics line for line. Sam was weak, they both knew it, but Sam enjoyed the illusion. As a result, Dean did, too.

After Sam fainted two days later and almost split his head open on the dock, scaring the ever-living shit out of Dean, he resolved to do more research. No Winchester goes down without a fight.

Right as he powered on the laptop, however, the creaking of floorboards alerted Dean to Sam’s presence.

He shut the lid hastily. “Dude, what are you doing out of bed? It’s late.”

“What are you doing out of bed?” Sam challenged.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, dude, I gotta find a way to busy myself until I go to sleep,” he winked cheekily, gesturing to the laptop and then to his zipper.

Sam frowned, crossing his arms. His entire frame seemed to fold along with them- where had all that muscle gone? “That’s not what you’re doing,” Sam accused, boring his eyes into Dean’s. Dean was staring at the way Sam’s shoulders hunched, curling inward.

Dean stood up, walking toward Sam. Outside, the wind pushed at the house, whistling quietly in the eaves. “Can’t I have one freaking moment to myself?” he snapped, “It’s like you’re a goddamn dog or something. I’m sick of having you trail after me.” Sam seemed to wilt under the sharp tone. Dean hated arguing with Sam, but he needed to find a way to help him. He had to. And if that meant pissing off Sam in the process, so be it. Slowly, he walked back to the table, sitting down in the rickety old chair and reaching for the computer.

Sam’s eyes glinted in the dark. His words stopped Dean’s motions. “You’re trying to find a way to get rid of the cancer.” Dean winced at the blunt usage of the ‘c-word’. “What’re you going to do, Dean? Make another deal? Find a witch? If you try anything it’s only going to get you killed.”

Dean stood up quickly, the chair falling backward onto the floor with a crash. “And if I do die? Who fucking cares? I’m not going to let you rot, Sammy. Is that how you want to go? Like a fucking… civilian? You’re going to get weaker and weaker, and it’s not going to stop until your breathing does. Just give me some space! I can fix this on my own.”

“I care,” Sam whispered.

Dean cocked an eyebrow. “What?

“I care,” Sam repeated, swallowing. “I care if you die. I don’t want you to run yourself into the ground here, Dean. I’m dying and there’s nothing you can do about it. So please stop trying to. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Dean. I have what, four months left? Let me enjoy them. With you. Please.”

A silence filled in the space between them. The wind had slowed, and a quiet rain took its place. “And, as a matter of fact, we are citizens, Dean,” Sam added quietly, after a moment.The moonlight lit up both of their faces, desperate and wrung-out. Sam wasn’t the only one who looked like he was dying of a terminal disease.

Dean looked away first. He nodded slowly, and bent to pick up the chair. “Ok,” he murmured. “Okay. Whatever.”

“Say you will,” Sam pleaded.

Dean glared at him for a moment, praying his eyes wouldn’t start the waterworks. “I’ll stay with you, Sammy. We’ll go through this together,” he vowed.

Sam smiled. The first bolt of lightning haloed him for a split second before dropping them back into the murky darkness.

_Entry #6- May 2_

_I’m so sorry, but I’m not stopping, hell no. This whole ‘settling down’ thing is nice, but if it means letting you slip through my fingers, I don’t want it. I’m getting you back to 100%, Sammy._

Sam was fading right before his eyes. He slept early and easily. His skin paled and sunk against his cheeks more and more every day. The little glimmer behind his puppy-dog eyes hid behind a cloud that grew bigger every day. There was a windstorm yesterday, and Sam practically blew away with the leaves. He gave in easily to Dean’s persuasion that they stay inside for the remainder of the day.

Winter was just around the corner, and Dean made a mental note to buy Sam a smaller sized coat.

_Entry #7- May 17_

_I’m too afraid to let you out of my sight. It just feels like if I turn my back, you’ll be gone. And I don’t think I could take that._

Sam had lost over forty pounds in the last two months alone. His clothing size had gone down two sizes, and Dean felt himself being used as a physical crutch more and more often. Not that he minded the warmth of Sam pressing up against him, though. It was a much-needed reminder that Sam was still here, he was still kicking, no matter what they had gone through.

_Yeah, but he won’t be here in a couple of weeks. Why does any of it matter? Why can’t I just take the two of us and drive off the pier? Wouldn’t that be better than watching him suffer?_

Dean scrubbed a hand wearily down his face, leaning on the kitchen counter. Sam was still in the bedroom- he hadn’t woken up yet. A full cup of coffee sat next to Dean, but it was cold. Usually Sam was up by now.

Dean mentally kicked himself for thinking about giving up. This was Sammy he was talking about- taking the “other” way out was never an option. Of course it mattered. He needed to be here for his baby brother.

Speaking of which, Dean automatically grabbed some of the pills from the cabinets when he heard a loud thump resound from the direction of the bedroom.

“Sammy?” he called out cautiously, stepping carefully forward into the doorway. On the other side of the room, the bathroom door was ajar, and yellow light spilled out onto the carpet of the dark room. Sam had trouble sleeping when it got brighter, which was part of his old early bird thing, so Dean kept the curtains of their bedroom closed at all times. There were two bedrooms, but Dean had told Sam the other one was cold and musty, so both of their beds had been crammed into this one. Sam had known from the beginning that the other bedroom was just fine, but he hadn’t said a word about it. Dean was grateful for that.

A muffled sob from inside the bathroom shook Dean out of his thoughts.

“Sammy?” he said again, this time more urgently, as he quickly crossed the room and opened the bathroom door, fearing that Sam had fallen or fainted or coughed up blood or…

But Sam appeared to be fine.

Well, relatively.

He was curled up in the corner of the bathroom, his knees pulled in close to his chest. His eyes were red and watery, and his mouth was pulled into a firm line which meant something was totally wrong. Well, obviously- Sam had an electric razor gripped tightly in one hand. His whole body was shaking- and half of his hair had been shaved off and was strewn across the floor.

Sam looked up at Dean and seemed to wilt. “I-” he started, but his voice caught in his throat and he fuckingwhimpered. The first tear fell.

“Oh, Sammy,” Dean breathed, the pills forgotten, kneeling down in front of his brother. He put one hand on Sam’s knee. Sam began to quiver even more and avoided Dean’s gaze, so Dean gently pried the razor from Sam’s hands and set in down on the ground, moving in closer to put an arm around Sam. “Hey, it’s okay,” he told Sam softly. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

“It-it started just f-falling out,” Sam blubbered, “I couldn’t, I mean, I just-”

Dean cut him off. “Hey, hey, shhh. I know. Do you want me to finish shaving it for you? Looks like you nicked yourself a little here,” he brushed a small cut on Sam’s head, his worry for Sam ramping up with each moment.

“You’d do that?” Sam whispered, blushing as he wiped tears from his eyes.

“Of course, dude. No self-respecting big brother lets his little brother walk around with half a head of hair, I mean come on,”

Sam laughed, sitting up a little straighter, so Dean took that as permission to pick up the razor and get started, cradling Sam’s head with one hand as he buzzed lock after lock off of Sam’s head.

Sam leaned into him, fisting a clump of Dean’s shirt in his hand, and sighed.

Dean made a mental note to add “dumb beanie” to his shopping list.

_Entry #8- June 4_

_No one ever fucking told me home would be a person, and that I would lose it._

After the incident in the bathroom, Dean practically never left Sam alone- not that he minded. If Dean were to be perfectly honest with himself, he would admit that he’d never been more frightened in his entire life. They had passed the six month mark. Every day, he felt like he lost another little piece of Sam. One day, Sam had forgotten Jess’s name. Dean had chosen to ignore the mistake. So, Dean and Sam walked alongside each other, always brushing against each other slightly. Dean would knock his fingers against Sam’s, accidentally intertwining a pinky, hoping Sam would get the hint, and for a while, Sam was oblivious. One day, though, he seemed to realize it, and gripped Dean’s hand as tightly as he used to when Dean walked him to school. They were always shoulder-to-shoulder. If Sam needed to sit down and rest, Dean left a hand on Sam’s leg. He felt compelled to be touching him at all times, just to be one-hundred percent sure Sam wouldn’t just crumble to ashes if he let go.

He was surprised when Sam was the one to suggest just getting a single bed, that the two beds crowded the room too much. He was only too happy to oblige.

This morning, he woke up with a lanky little brother draped over him. Sam’s nose was buried in his hair, and he could feel the nasal cannula digging into his scalp. One of his arms was curled around Dean’s waist, holding Dean like a child would a teddy bear. One of Sam’s legs was caught between his, and god was he burning up. Not only was it around eighty degrees inside, but Sam was a huge heated blanket. Grinning dumbly, Dean managed to untangle himself from Sam and get out of bed.

Checking the time, he found he had slept in. A lot.

“Hey, buddy,” he prodded Sam, taking the IV drop out of his arm and removing the cannula, “time to get up. It’s a hell of a nice day,”

Sam groaned, digging his head into his pillow, but after a moment he rolled out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom to down a myriad of pills. Dean hid the IV drop in the closet. They were going to have a goddamn normal, peaceful-as-fuck day, even though they were pretty much past the finish line.

-

Dean stopped walking down the path when he no longer heard Sam’s clumsy footsteps behind him. Turning around, he saw Sam lying in the grass, and sprinted toward him, heart racing.

“Sammy, are you okay?” he asked urgently, kneeling down in the grass.

Sam smiled meekly back at him. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied quietly, “I just thought this was a nice place to stop,”

“Well, next time you’re feeling tired, just say so,” Dean quipped, “We don’t have a margin for error,”

The weight of the phrase shook Sam. “I’m sorry, I will. I promise.”

Sam moved to sit up, but his arms trembled under the weight. Before his brother could feel embarrassed or ashamed or any of those dumb emotions, Dean flopped onto his back beside Sam, propping up his head with his arms. “You better hope this view is goddamned serene,” Dean mock-threatened, “or I’ll make you watch Gilmore Girls,”

“You wouldn’t,” Sam gasped, but he was grinning.

The forest canopy above them swayed gently in the breeze, and the birds lent them a peaceful background melody. Shards of blue sky were visible between the leaves- there wasn’t a cloud in sight.

Sam exhaled slowly, closing his eyes. A faint smile graced his lips, and Dean didn’t give a rat’s ass about the scenery. Sam was the most beautiful thing in sight, always was- even when his cheeks were sunken and Dean was taller than him again- none of that mattered.

“I wish the world was this simple,” Sam broke the silence.

“What do you mean?” Dean inquired, wishing Sam would open up his bright eyes again.

“No hell below us, above us only sky.” Sam commented. “This place is so calm. I feel like I could just stay in this one spot for the rest of my life.”

“Hey, watch it,” Dean swallowed, frowning.

“You know what I meant,” Sam answered. “I love it here. It feels like the world’s stopped turning.”

“I wish it would,” Dean confessed. Unconsciously, he found himself watching Sam’s chest go up and down, making sure that it didn’t stop.

“Yeah, well, shut up and enjoy it, dude.”

“I am, trust me,” Dean countered.

Sam’s lazy smile had remained in place throughout their conversation, and Dean appreciated it, memorizing the way Sam’s dimples looked in the sunlight.

The breeze ceased blowing, and Dean had an odd feeling in his gut when the birds quieted, too.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam murmured softly, turning Dean’s focus away from the birds.

“Yeah?” Dean turned onto his side to give Sam his full attention.

“Just, uh…” Sam trailed off, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “thank you,”

“For what?” Dean asked curiously.

Sam didn’t reply.

“Sammy?”

Sam didn’t respond, and throughout all of the woods and all of the foothills, not a sound was heard. It was completely devoid of noise- not even a single mouse dared to tread through the dirt.

“Oh, no, no no no  _no_ ,” Dean gasped, sitting up. “Not now, Sammy. Not fucking now.”

 _If not now, then when?_ his head argued, and he ignored it.

Pressing two desperate fingers into Sam’s neck, Dean waited and waited and prayed for a pulse.

Nothing. Not a single weak, wavering beat beneath his skin.

“No,” Dean choked again, like it was the only word he could say.

“You can’t leave me now,” he whispered after a long moment. “You can’t leave me  _ever_ ,”

A drop of water hit Sam’s cheek and it took Dean far too long to realize that it was a tear, and that it had fallen from his cheek. Dean shook Sam by the shoulders, vision blurring, and Sam’s head rolled limply to the side. Dean made a strangled sound, half between a laugh and a cry, when he realized Sam was still smiling. He looked like he was just sleeping.

He wished Sam would just open up those bright eyes again.

An unnerving feeling gathered at the bottom of his stomach, and Dean felt like a car had hit him head-on. Standing up, he teetered on his feet, looking down at Sam.

_You can’t get him back this time._

Sobbing outright, he ran back through the woods to their house, and into the spare bedroom. He took the footstool out of the closet and set it in the center of the room, climbing quickly on top of it. He pulled open the attic door, swatting away the dust that rained down upon him. Pulling out an unmarked box, he stepped off of the stool and collapsed onto the ground, opening the box up. It contained a myriad of things- photographs of their family, old records and the like. He tossed those aside and pulled out his amulet, putting it around his neck, hoping it would feel like Sam.

It felt more like a noose.

Below that, his Colt .45 rested, glinting in the low light of the bedroom. Pulling it out, his hands fumbled to turn the safety off and bring the piece to his chin.

“You can’t leave me here alone,” he laughed brokenly, smiling as he pulled the trigger.


End file.
